Posh poutine

Chef Cary Doherty’s take on Quebec’s poutine dish at the Little Social restaurant in London, Thursday May 23, 2013.Marcos Townsend
/ Marcos Townsend

Chef Docherty’s take on poutine at the Little Social restaurant in London.Marcos Townsend
/ Marcos Townsend

“The Brits are intrigued” about poutine, Vancouver-born chef Cary Docherty says. “It’s not the most beautiful of dishes (to them), but the comment we get most is that its ‘moreish.’ ”Marcos Townsend
/ Marcos Townsend

Canadians Amy Baker, left, and Anya Nikoulina prepare a poutine dish at a friend’s apartment in London, England Thursday May 23, 2013. The pair started a food stall called P’tite Poutine as a side project to their regular jobs.Marcos Townsend
/ Marcos Townsend

Canadians Amy Baker, left, and Anya Nikoulina joke while preparing a poutine dish at a friend’s apartment in London, England Thursday May 23, 2013. The pair started a food stall called P’tite Poutine as a side project to their regular jobs.Marcos Townsend
/ Marcos Townsend

The entrance to Hawksmoor Spitalfields in London. Their take on poutine includes pig’s cheeks. Right: Narrow Pollen St. leads to the upscale poutine-serving Little Social restaurant.Marcos Townsend
/ Marcos Townsend

Potatoes are pulled from the deep fryer as Canadians Amy Baker and Anya Nikoulina prepare a poutine dish at a friend’s apartment in London, England Thursday May 23, 2013. The pair started a food stall called P’tite Poutine as a side project to their regular jobs.Marcos Townsend
/ Marcos Townsend

LONDON - Cary Docherty is insistent: he will not reveal the source of his cheese curds.

“Absolutely not,” he says, laughing. “I phoned 30 or 40 different farms to try and get them to make cheddar curds for me. They were all like ... ‘No, no, no, don’t want to do it.’ Finally, one guy said yes. It took me forever.”

You can understand his reticence. The Vancouver-born chef is in charge at Little Social, one of London’s most high-profile restaurant openings this year, and one of a growing group of places — from high-end restaurants to food trucks — in the city that serves poutine. This iconic Quebec dish is starting to make inroads in the British capital, but the key ingredient — cheese curds — is still hard to get your hands on in the U.K.

Not only that, but British diners are usually more puzzled than pleased when they spot poutine on the menu at his Mayfair restaurant, Docherty adds — at least until they try it.

“The Brits are intrigued,” says the 36-year-old, who also served poutine at his previous restaurant, the Gordon Ramsay-owned Foxtrot Oscar in Chelsea. “They look at it — ‘ooohhh.’ It’s not the most beautiful of dishes, but the comment we get most is that its ‘moreish.’ They enjoy it, it’s gone down quite well.”

The same is true at P’tite Poutine, a food stall in Broadway Market, the hub of London’s hipster-heavy East End. The stall, run by Toronto natives Amy Baker and Anya Nikoulina, has only been operating since March, but the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive — even if most customers are poutine veterans.

“People that haven’t tried it before, like it — but the majority of my clients have tried it, they know about it: they’re Canadians or people who have been to Canada,” says Baker, 27.

“They get really excited when they see it. They love it that we have the real curds.”

For all the insistence on cheese curds, both P’tite Poutine and The Little Social take some liberties with the recipe. Baker’s Poutine comes with a vegetarian gravy (“It allows us to serve it to that many more people — and I’m vegetarian,” she explains), while Docherty’s version is garnished with jalapenos and chorizo sausage. The real glory of the Little Social dish, though, is the gravy, made with shallots, carrots, garlic, thyme, rosemary, and veal and chicken stock. It’s as rich and delicious as it sounds.

The gravy is also key at another of London’s new breed of poutine pedlars: Spit and Roast, an award-winning rotisserie van that pops up all over the city. Owners Justin Unsworth, 42, and Ross Gardiner, 35 — both British — have served poutine since the launch last April, and although they’ve had some uncertain Canadian customers (they use Scottish cheddar rather than cheese curds), their version of poutine has generally been well-received.

“It’s huge,” Unsworth says. “It’s really popular. Cheese and chips are nothing new in this country, and chips and gravy is the same — and to have the Québécois story behind it helps.”

As does the gravy, which is made from the chicken or pork left over from the previous day’s rotisserie. “That’s how it started. Where we had chicken left, we were pulling the meat off and making a lovely gravy ... it made sense to pour that over chicken and cheese.”

At Hawksmoor, a high-end steak restaurant in Spitalfields, drinkers can order poutine at the bar, made with chips, cheese curds, chicken or oxtail gravy — and, if you so wish, a fried egg on top. If that sounds a little too much, then the association of poutine with alcohol suggests Hawksmoor’s owners have a pretty keen understanding of the dish’s place in Canadian culture.

Indeed, the real surprise about the current popularity of poutine in London is why it has taken so long: a calorie-rich dish, perfect for soaking up alcohol, might seem purpose-built for the British.

“One of the reasons we decided to give it a go was because this is a country where people do quite like potatoes, cheese and gravy!” Baker says with a laugh. “It seemed foolproof.”

Nonetheless, for most Britons it remains an oddity. For Canadians, says Docherty, it’s a cherished reminder of home: he began serving it partly because he wanted to eat it.

“It’s one of my favourite things to eat in the world, and nobody (before me) was doing it in London,” he says.

“You always know when there’s a Canadian table (at Little Social) because of the number of poutines they order. I’ve had people come in and order four poutines. They have to be Canadian!”

So what’s next? Can London expect a deluge of Canadian delicacies trailing in poutine’s wake?

“Well, I like to use maple syrup a lot,” Docherty says. “I’d like to use it a lot more, actually.”

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If you go... Here are details of some British locales trading in poutine

Hawksmoor Spitalfields, 157a Commercial St. E1 6BJ; thehawksmoor.com/spitalfieldsbar; 020 7426 4856. Poutine comes with either chicken (£7) or oxtail (£7.50) gravy, and for £1 you can have an egg on top.